grow up already

Decide if the ACT or SAT works with you/your plans , and which one you want to take (if you want to take any at all - I didn't take either one and I still got into college. I applied to a jr college, Ivy Tech, and from there went on to transfer to a public university that would have needed my ACT/SAT scores if I'd directly applied there instead. That's definitely an option if you think you won't have good scores, or don't want to go through the testing stress). Read this article  to make sure the subjects you're studying in high school are adequately preparing you for college, as it goes over everything colleges will/won't look at when you apply and turn in your transcript (you don't have to worry about the transcript, Mom will do that for you if you graduated from high school at home. If you graduated from someplace like CEC, they'll send the transcript. I think you just have to email them and tell them what college to send it to). Then, read this h...

When you get a degree, don't necessarily think about money, think more about what you want to do. Also weigh in the fact that: 1) you need to be able to support yourself with extra on the side for hospitality or just having spending cash. Keep in mind that if you DO get married (don't plan on it, bc that can cloud your judgement and you might make really bad decisions about the future) you could be the major contributor/sole breadwinner and will need a job that can support you, your spouse, and potential kids if you decide to have any. 2) you need to be able to pay back student debts/your parents. Student debts, if you have them, are a duh - you need to pay those back or you go to jail. But parents might also provide a significant amount of money and you need to give back what you owe, even if there is no interest, no pressure, no deadline, no punishment, no reminders. 3) when choosing a major, pick something that pays well but also has elements that you enjoy. If you love m...

I personally find checklists really helpful - they tell you exactly what you need to do to get to a certain point. And in this case, that point is college. So here are the checklists I found most helpful for me, or that had the most potential, and that will probably be most helpful for you, wherever you are in school. (all links open in new tabs) checklist for 6th-8th graders .  I really like this checklist, even as a graduated high school student - it's a great way to really get you thinking about where you want to be, how you want to get there, and why. It gives you information on what different kinds of schools there are, and gives you some pointers based on what you'd be interested in. It also gives you tips, tells you where to start, tells you what to do depending on the grade you're in, answers questions you're probably asking yourself right now, and basically holds your hand and guides you through the process. Reading it got me really excited for college, so I wo...

Eventually you're going to have to bump it up a notch and take your car out onto the freeway. But don't be too scared - once you can drive on the freeway, you can drive to church. Unless there are back roads you usually take, but I'm guessing the fastest and most well-known route to the church you now go to takes you to the freeway so that's where you're going to go. Just a guess, tho. So, before I get into the pep talk I seem to love doing in every post, I want to make sure you're not concerned about something: when I got on the freeway the first time, I was rlly stressed after I'd driven on the freeway bc I felt like it was the wrong way of learning how to drive - I didn't know how to pull in and out of the driveway and it was stressing me out bc I felt like I needed to learn the driveway thing first, fsr. If that's the case with you, just letting you know now, the driveway thing is super easy to master so if you get the rlly hard freeway thing ...

Getting your hours in is really really important, duh. And if you have a job (it's not necessary, but if you do), it's the best time to get your hours in. Drive to work, let the 21+ yo drive it home. They'll drive it back to pick you up and you can drive them home. Then also don't forget that you can drive to and from church. And if Dad and Mom don't change drastically from now till then, you'll be driving there and back twice every Sunday (so there and back x4) and then also driving there for Wednesday night prayer meeting (which is changing this coming June, so ig you'd be driving to the youth meetings instead of prayer meetings, but it's still driving there and back). Don't think you need to be precise with your hours. You can put them down in hour and half hour increments, no less. So if you run to the store 5 minutes away, you can put that down as half and hour and not feel guilty over it. You need 60 hrs total - 50 daytime, 10 nighttime....

So you need to find a job. I didn't have much trouble finding my first one - actually my first one wasn't quite a job and I wasn't looking. Dad needed the lawn mowed and was willing to pay $10/wk for it to get done - he came and asked me, I said yes. It wasn't a well-paying job by any stretch of the imagination and I knew that. But I didn't need much and I knew it would only be for the summer, or at least until I found another, better job. And I had been doing it 100% free of charge, so anything was better than nothing. Sometimes I could even get away with doing it just once a week and then it was $10/mow. My second job I didn't look for either, it came to me. A couple at our church (idk if you'd remember them by the time you read this, but they were at RBCL, our church in Louisville), Isaac and Sharon Id é (eeh-day), had a baby and needed a babysitter. They had told Mom but then a few months after that they sent out an email and asked for a babysi...